08 Jan Canadian Classics – Hiatus/St. John’s BMX
To an outsider, the Maritimes have always had an awesome scene. Back in the day, one of the highlights of that scene was a series of videos created by Chris Nicholas. Chris was an awesome rider – he bombed huge rails, rode impossible pools, and in Deadline (2003?) he did a 5050 to second stage over crooked – maybe the first one. Chris was also one of the first videographers I knew of who used a DVX100 for bmx, and he was always doing interesting things with still cameras. Production wise, Hiatus was far ahead of its time. The motion graphics were dialed, the filming was on point, and the whole thing had a polished look that was unique and just really cool. All this was happening in 2005, in Newfoundland, for a local scene video.
The St. John’s BMX series introduced many of us to two big names in Canadian BMX – Jeff Evans and Phil Bartlett. In Deadline, Phil looked like he was ten years old. Two years later, in Hiatus, Phil had grown two feet taller and it was unclear that he was even the same guy. Jeff was also pretty young in these videos; he brought East Coast street style reminiscent of riders far to the south of him and totally owned the opposite grind variations of the time.
Chris has a long and detailed post on the history of their video series (including all of the videos in full) here: The St. John’s BMX Tetrology. He also took the time to answer a few questions about their scene of ten years ago and what it was like growing up riding in Canada’s most isolated province. Check that out after the link.
